Interview: Magic: The Gathering Heads Talk Spider-Man Set

Back in late September, Wizards of the Coast released the new Marvel's Spider-Man expansion for Magic: The Gathering, marking its inclusion as the 107th Expansion in the title's history. We recently got a chance to chat with MTG's Head Designer, Mark Rosewater, as well as the Senior Art Director, Sarah Wassell, about the work that went into creating the set ahead of its launch.

BC: Hey gang! So first off, when did you start talking to Disney/Marvel about doing a partnership, and how did those early talks go?

MR: I don't know who approached who, but I do know we pitched to Marvel many years ago. We designed eight cards to demonstrate to them what a Marvel-themed Magic set would look like. They liked what they saw and we decided to go into business together.

At what point did you realize you'd be doing multiple sets with the company? What was it like planning those out early on?

MR: I think from the get-go we realized that Marvel's library of characters, stories, and environments was so huge (having created a shared world with eighty years of monthly content) that it made sense to do more than one set. This was the first time we had ever done that with a partner.

What made you decide to start with the NYCC 2024 Secret Lair superdrop before doing a full set?

MR: We were excited by the partnership, but knew that it would take years to create full sets, so the Secret Lair was a great way to give the players a taste of what was coming.

How did you all come to the agreement of doing Spider-Man as the first full set?

MR: With Universes Beyond, the licensor is the expert of the property and we are the expert at the game, so we like to get as much input as possible about what would excite the audience. Marvel had a lot of data that showed that Spider-Man was one of their most accessible heroes, meaning that he was well known and well-liked by a wide range of people, so he made a lot of sense as the best place to start our partnership.

Considering the character's long history, where did you creatively start in the development process, and how did it branch out from there?

MR: We started as we do with any Universes Beyond. We find what we call subject matter experts (SME or "smee") on the property and have them map out all the coolest things about the property. Who are all the Spider-Man adjacent characters? What are the biggest and best Spider-Man storylines? What Spider-Man things would make great Magic cards? We generate a giant list and then start the design from there. What elements does the game play have to capture to feel like Spider-Man? As the design evolves, we keep checking back at our list to make sure that we're capturing all the things we highlighted as being the most important.

What kind of a challenge was it finding ways to make some of these iconic characters feel useful and balanced without making anyone too overpowered?

MR: First and foremost, we wanted to make sure that the cards felt flavorful to their source. This is what we call top-down design, where we make mechanics to bring the flavor alive. The power level of the cards gets figured out much later in the process. And the more fun the designs, the happier we are to push them when we get to the balancing stage of design. Every set gets some powerful cards, but only so many, so we want to make sure the ones we're pushing are as fun to play as they can be. Also, it's not key that every character is powerful. Many people will play with them if they are flavorful and fun.

When the decision was made to make multiple versions of specific cards, how did you land on the art style each version would be?

SW: We know from the beginning of the set design that we will be creating multiple versions of cards. For a set like Spider-Man, there is an unbelievably rich history of visual storytelling and art, so honestly, it was more about narrowing down all of the things we wanted to do style-wise to the best, most appealing ideas. It's been so much fun to fit original Spider-Man comic art to well-known Magic cards, creating the comic panel frame and commissioning talented Marvel artists to fill it was a thrill. Honestly, picking art styles was more about restraint with this set—we're all Spider-Man fans, so everyone had their favorite ideas before we even started!

Obviously, there are so many references to Spider-Man in the comics, TV, film, and more. How did you narrow the decision-making down to what would be represented from each genre?

MR: For the sets, we have the comics license, meaning what we are capturing is the characters as they appear in the comics. We're aware of other media, and the popularity of characters from them did influence what we put into the set. For example, the success of the Spider-Verse animated films did encourage us to use more Spider-Verse characters. As to what we prioritized, it came down to what ours SMEs thought would make the fans the happiest.

Do you have any personal favorite cards from this set you can't wait for people to check out?

MR: My personal favorite card is Spider-Ham. In the set Bloomburrow (our animal set from last year), I had tried to make a mechanic built around animals. It didn't get made, but this card is the closest in design to that idea.

What do you hope fans get out of this set as they play it and use it in sessions and tournaments moving forward?

MR: As a huge fan of Spider-Man I'm excited to see other players who enjoy the property get the joy I've experienced playing with characters I love. For players that might not be Spider-Man fans, we tried hard to design a lot of cards that are fun to play regardless of if you know the source material.